Released in 2020 during the 45th anniversary of the Lao Diaspora, Before We Remember We Dream is typically considered the sixth full-length collection of Lao American poet Bryan Thao Worra. His other full-length collections include On The Other Side Of The Eye, BARROW, Tanon Sai Jai, DEMONSTRA, and The Tuk-Tuk Diaries: Preludes and Postcards, an expanded reprint/re-imagining of his 2003 chapbook The Tuk-Tuk Diaries: Our Dinner with Clusterbombs. His collections Winter Ink and Diasporantics are often considered chapbooks or special projects.
Before We Remember We Dream contains 55 original poems by Bryan Thao Worra. 11 appeared previously in publications such as the science fiction and fantasy quarterly Uncanny Magazine, Little Laos on the Prairie, the humor poetry magazine Defenestration, the Mekong Review and the Asian Pacific American Studies Review. This is his first collection to feature illustrations by the Lao American illustrator and author Nor Sanavongsay, and a cover by the award-winning Lao American artist Sisavanh Phouthavong Houghton. His previous collection DEMONSTRA featured visual art by the Lao American visual artist Vongduane Manivong. Before We Remember We Dream features many easter eggs in both the interior art and the text. A significant cinematic influence on this collection was the 1982 film Blade Runner.
The majority of poems in this collection progress chronologically including accounts of key moments in cities significant to the author, taking note of significant landmarks, cultural events, institutions, and popular culture related to that time period. His poems often take a non-traditional view of more well-known people, places and things. Most members of his community are not given names in this collection. Some are anonymized, others are composite characters or fictionalized for artistic effect or to protect the privacy of the subjects. In some instances, subjects or their families could face significant political or social consequences if they were easily identifiable in the poems.
The majority of poems are drawn from the author’s years in the Midwest. Minnesota is home to the third largest Lao population in the United States, tied with Washington state. California has the largest Lao population in the US followed by Texas. You can download a 2010 statistical profile of the Southeast Asian American community in the US from the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center here.
The Lao in Diaspora
Laos is a nation approximately the size of the United Kingdom or Utah, with traditions that go back over 600 years to the kingdom of Lan Xang. During the 1880s to 1954 it was colonized as part of French Indochina until the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The CIA World Factbook entry on Laos can provide some statistics that may be helpful for many readers.
Many came to the US as refugees with few resources to assist their adaptation to America in the years after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Many families had to leave Laos for their roles assisting the US during the wars in Southeast Asia despite the official neutrality of Laos established by the 1954 Geneva Accords. Refugees from Laos include ethnic Lao, Hmong, Khmu, Lue, Tai Dam, Iu Mien and many other cultures.
Some of those from Laos were part of the Secret Army covertly recruited by the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency to help stop enemy troop and supply movement along the Ho Chi Minh Trail headed towards South Vietnam. Those efforts were assisted by Operation Barrel Roll, a secret US bombing campaign from 1964-1973 that ultimately left over 30% of Laos contaminated with unexploded cluster bombs over 4 decades later, long since the end of the war.
The Lao have often struggled with invisibility in the United States. For years, many lived below the poverty line, and fewer than 13% were able to successfully graduate college. Many had to confront issues of anti-Asian violence and prejudice in the schools and workforce. Issues of gangs, early teen pregnancy, alcohol, tobacco, drug and gambling addiction were community challenges, as were untreated mental health issues such as depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome. A major concern for Lao Americans today are emerging issues surrounding deportation, especially for those whose families initially fled Laos for fear of retaliation. Although there are 250,000+ Lao refugees living in the United States today, after 45 years there have been fewer than 45 books written by Lao Americans in their own words.
About the Author
Bryan Thao Worra has been the Lao Minnesotan Poet Laureate since 2018. Born in the city of Vientiane, Laos in 1973, he was adopted by an American pilot as an infant. He was naturalized as a US citizen in 1976 and grew up in Montana, Alaska, and Michigan before attending college in Ohio and working briefly in Washington D.C. He then moved to Minnesota in 1998. When he was 30 he made his first trip back to Laos to search for his long-lost family, and was reunited with them in Modesto, California. He has remained in contact with them ever since.
In 2009 he became the first Lao American to receive a Fellowship in Literature from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012 he represented Laos as a Cultural Olympian at the Poetry Parnassus of the London Summer Games. In 2016 he became the first Asian American president of the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. In 2019 he received a Joyce Award with the Lao Assistance Center of Minnesota to create the Laomagination: 45 exhibit of art and poetry. Its purpose was to reflect on 45 years of the Lao Diaspora. This became a nationwide and international journey including his first return to Laos in 17 years to address the memories, dreams and hopes of his fellow Lao in diaspora and their former homeland.
Today his work appears in 100+ publications globally including Australia, Cambodia, Canada, England, Scotland, Germany, Mexico, France, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Chile, Pakistan, and the United States. His writing is translated in Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Thai, Tagalog, Bengali, and Lao.
A central thrust of his work over the decades has been the recovery of the Lao imagination and making the transition from authoritarian systems to democracies. He has encouraged emerging writers to cultivate the ability to see alternatives and to re-imagine themselves: Who they are, have been, could have been, and could yet be, in order to express futures people see themselves in. He is especially concerned as the Lao often find refugee imagination, dreams, myths, and personal histories co-opted, erased or pruned for particular agendas. To that end, incorporating elements of science fiction, fantasy, mythology and horror have often been effective for him to engage with uncomfortable community conversations on history and their collective future.
Sample Interviews and Articles of Interest:
Special Vocabulary
Certain words and concepts get mentioned by Bryan Thao Worra in Before We Remember We Dream which may not be easily identified by an internet search and the following terms are briefly explained for your convenience.
Ajahn: A Lao word for teacher. Many are connected or associated with the Buddhist monasteries.
Chang/Xang: Elephant. Laos was once known as the Realm of a Million Elephants.
ຈື່ Chu: Remember.
Dok champa/Frangipani: The national flower of Laos, also considered a plumeria.
Himmapan Forest: A sacred forest at the base of Mt. Meru where at least one of every possible type of creature is said to live.
Jackalope: A rabbit with the antlers of a deer. Other attributes have been associated with it and the closely related chickalope that are too varied to discuss here.
Jai Gai Nyai: Heart of a large chicken.
Kaiju: a giant monster.
Khao Nio: Sticky rice, a staple of the traditional Lao diet.
Khop Jai/Khop jhai: Thank you
Kinnaly or Kinnary: A mythical bird woman associated with dance, art and music.
Kuan Yin: A goddess of mercy, increasingly associated with liberty.
Lan Xang/Lane Xang: A 13th century kingdom in Southeast Asia generally considered to be the forerunner to the nation of Laos.
Laopocalypse: An end of the world with strong connections or relevance to the Lao experience.
Mae Nak or Nang Nak: A famous Southeast Asian ghost mother who died during childbirth.
Mor Lam: A popular form of Lao singing
Mor Phi: A spiritualist or witch doctor specializing in supernatural beings
Mount Meru: A legendary Hindu/Buddhist mountain said to exist at the center of the Universe that leads to all other points of creation.
Nak or Naga: A legendary protective serpent god/demigod associated with Laos. Phaya Nak or Phaya Naga is the term for a ruler of the Nak. Some will dispute if there is only one or multiple beings who carry this title at any given point in time.
Nakini or Nakinee: A female Nak.
Ngam lai: beautiful
Nuckawi: poet
Nyak: A type of warrior-sorcerer giant corresponding to the legendary Rakshasa and Oni in other traditions.
Nyakinee or Nyakini: A female Nyak
Passa Lao: Lao language
Phi: A class of supernatural entities corresponding to ghosts and beings from the Lao underworld.
Pung: A former Lao classmate of the author met one month in Anchorage, Alaska. Never seen again.
Ravens: Also known as the Edgar Allan Poe Literary Society, secret Forward Air Controllers involved in the Secret War for Laos along with members of Air America, a CIA-owned airline.
Sabaidee: The traditional Lao greeting
Sala: Typically built by the roadside or near a clearing for travelers to rest in, often resembles a gazebo.
Samsara: A Buddhist term for a cycle of return to multiple lives to work out various issues of karma until someone achieves nirvana.
Sao Lao: A Lao girl.
Talaat Sao: The morning market, especially in Vientiane.
That Luang: A prominent temple in the city of Vientiane.
Tera Patrick: A Thai American actress.
Tunnel rat: A US soldier trained for combat in subterranean tunnel complexes common during the Vietnam War and conflicts since.
Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children: Unofficial acronym based off of USMC or United States Marine Corps.
Vincent Chin: A Chinese American man killed by two Detroit auto workers who thought they’d been laid off because of competition with Japanese car makers in the 1980s. His death influenced much of the modern Asian American activism movement since the 1980s.
Wat Lao: A Lao Theravada Buddhist temple.
Wat Mahabut: A famous temple in Bangkok.
Wendigo: A carnivorous forest spirit. Some believe it is capable of possessing others.
Xieng Mieng: A famous Lao trickster
Y’ha-nthlei: A city associated with the Deep Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos
Zoo nkaub: A Hmong phrase for beautiful
Poem readings